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Vietnam’s Infinite Cave | National Geographic


you
you
thank you for having me here and having
that opportunity to show you a little
bit about the underworld in Vietnam and
I want to side the expedition leader
Howard Limbert who said to find the
giant cave like Hong Hong Kong in
Vietnam is something like you find the
previously unknown Mount Everest have
compared to mountains and he added and
we still just scratched the surface so
we don’t know exactly what is underneath
his giant limestone plateaus and it’s an
unknown world and it’s it was a major
discovery done in 2009 and we revisited
in 2010 and we explored it more and we
wanted to continue fault lines and and
even get into maybe even bigger systems
anyway it gave me some heroes in in the
beginning because I knew that it’s these
were the biggest passages we know of and
the biggest black holes on our planet so
how should I photograph it how should I
light it so I will tell you more and we
start the show yeah just to give you an
orientation where we are we are in
central Vietnam around here that’s a
phone knock a bang National Park it is a
huge limestone plateau it’s the biggest
in Asia all the gray part is is
limestone rock and we have different
river systems here here with cave
entrances in red the the warming system
here in green here in violet these are
sub terian rivers with different cave
entrances no and there is the Hong Hong
Kong situated the biggest
cave passage we found just in general to
give you an idea how the landscape looks
like so these are the edges of the edges
of this limestone plateau it’s a very
pretty
Comcast or tower cost so we find some
nice points where the people water their
buffaloes and it is very fertile land
there so they grow rice and very very
picturesque and scenic landscape
landscape but also I mean the mountains
are very ragged and very difficult to to
explore and this is also the edge of
these systems so just to make a mile a
horizontal mile means you have to go up
and down and over really sharp razor
blade sharp rocks and it’s a long way
sometimes you need just a whole day to
do a mile so that is the problem that
it’s so remote and out from that plateau
huge rivers come out they were first sub
Tyrion and come to the surface and they
are more or less than life lane for the
people and they they wash their water
buffaloes or kids playing around or for
the fishermen so it’s it’s really where
the life takes place and that is our
main village where we where we based off
so it’s called song truck it made a huge
development the last 10 years so we have
some concrete buildings and from there
we stream out into the forest so there
is a lot of bush walking we had
fantastic assistance with
with Bushman jungle man who ported us
our our goods over very steep bracket
terrain it’s always well you if you are
in front of that row you have to hack
your way through the bush give eff you
face a lot of spider nets and well in
between you can see some nice poisonous
snakes or some centipedes and if you are
in the end of the row you get all the
leeches who are detecting something is
coming and so so the leeches will call
on you up onto your body and into your
clothes so for me where numb is the
country of butterflies so it is amazing
it’s overwhelming you see butterflies
everywhere and as many butterflies you
see and as beautiful they are that many
caterpillars you have to and they are
hairy and they have educating hairs and
whatever and that is exactly what
happened to how one he just put his
wetsuit out there on the knees a tree
and all the caterpillars fell in and
lost their hairs and whatever so he got
rid of them just went into his wetsuit
and wanted to do a cave and then
everything got irritating in his back
and painful and it was stinging and it
was poisonous and whatever so he had a
really hard time he had to get out of
the cave here to get you finish
everything it had was really painful the
porters were laughing at him but then
they realized it was more serious than
that and he’s in a really awkward
situation and has pain and they have to
do something about it and they put him
on fire and with a lot of warms after
eventually after four or five hours the
pain was receding and yeah he had a
tough time anyway so little stories
besides so but that’s what you
experience on the experi
like this but it’s it’s incredible I
mean the variety of butterflies and
sometimes they are big like birds and
they really surprise you with
IRA’s iridescent wings and really it’s
amazing
so and for cave exploring you have to
follow any lead any little fissure and
in the beginning it’s quite difficult to
find really major systems so you can’t
see it like a mountain you have to you
have to crawl into anything which
what-what is kind of opening and
unfortunately we have been very unhappy
on that trip so there was a lot of
effort a lot of walking but without
really the big results so we find only
mine while marginal descends so probably
if you go further in maybe there are the
big systems but you never know exactly
so we had something like 20 meter drops
and that was it so it was always
disappointing on the other hand we we’ve
met this kind of people
it is Fong na ki bong National Park it’s
a World Heritage Site but still there
are these illegal loggers and also
illegal hunters so it’s amazing how much
they carry these are maybe 100 pound man
carrying 200 pounds on their back on
this very ragged landscape with their
plastic sandals it’s it’s incredible how
they manage it here on the entrance it’s
like a like a living thing that cave
freezes and has clouds inside so
everything comes out and it’s almost
like a storm and moves the the leaves
and yeah it’s a kind of a cold wind and
for me as a photograph I it was always
kind of tricky to have to deal with so
much fog I didn’t reckon with that and
yeah I had to somehow live with that
because they always always some sort of
condensation and it was tricky to get
some clear view especially here in the
entrance there was a lot of condensation
when the cool air comes out of the cave
it just it just condensate and well soon
in the beginning what I showed now is a
little
they were already this this beautiful
and impressive huge stars and I did what
I could do with illuminating this kind
of situations
despite this fog it was pretty
impressive to to see how how other it
changes with different light settings so
I overlaid some images to give you a
idea how you can visualize these sort of
rooms but it was very beautiful entry
and then we come into this huge gallery
and this is half a mile away that is
called hand hands of talk and and and
after that is the view to the first door
line which is another half mile away so
it’s actually one kilometer or 1 1 mile
towards the towards the opening and you
have this giant giant stalls I mean that
is like more than a 10 story building
this dystonic might and here you have as
a comparison a person yeah it’s
absolutely unbelievable these dimensions
and it’s difficult to put that in scale
so now I change the position to exactly
where that man stand and we see in the
back far these little stalls but these
are the big ones we have seen in just in
the last frame so it just gives you an
idea how big these rooms are and that is
half a mile to these big stars and we
needed like 14 people to light this
gallery that was very very tricky and to
lighting in that way that the fog
doesn’t reflect the light so it was
pretty challenging to to make that shot
and we had of course a lot of problems
also in terms of communication with
there were a lot of Vietnamese you can
imagine what what it means to get that
somehow coordinated and with only a low
number of radios and then it should be
translated and whatever it was just a
mess
and well here we are close now to the
first sinkhole and it the the pictures
changed from the natural light setting
towards a little artificial ads which
which shows you how big some of these
rocks are which are just falling from
the ceiling yeah they are several storey
buildings which just fall from the
ceiling so these dimensions are really
unbelievable and then just these little
stalls next to the person you you can
figure out how big it is and then there
was something very very strange what I
have never seen before like that it’s
it’s a so-called phyto cost and these
are microorganisms who actively yeah
attract calcite and they grow it’s some
kind of growing stone and this grows
towards the light these microorganisms
they built their own castle and their
heart shell with rock and and just it’s
growing rock against against light it’s
absolutely amazing so here we have the
dim light of of the first door line
again and you see the size of these
boulders it’s just massive everything
yeah you see a little of the forest on
the top and they are hanging wines and
some look like petrified icicles and
down there you have giant it’s also a
fight across stalagmite in a way and
it’s over and over grown with with this
plans and this is the place they called
watch out for dinosaurs and somehow I
knew why
I wouldn’t have wondered if someone
looks around the edge and you and roars
and there are some crazy sounds too and
and here you see again this kind of
rocks
yeah which which which form around the
plants and the plants completely adapted
to that so it’s it’s it’s rock hard
their stems and yeah very to me very
fascinating yeah I would love to know
the biology behind it here you see
that’s this massive style in the middle
it’s about 200 feet high and all built
up by these microorganisms so in rainy
season there is a waterfall coming or
just or if it rains a waterfall coming
down and you see that that this is the
plant grows which influenced the stone
and and this is like like wings like
fingers which grows towards light it’s
not like a normal rock formation so that
was pretty beautiful and it’s always
like where water comes down where the
plants can get the calcite from and then
they grow against the light and you have
really strange formations that is the
view from above and you look down in a
huge gallery that galleries maybe 300
feet high yeah these dimensions are
exceptional and just to light it it’s
also a challenge and you have this big
Gower’s in the front and and then you
have this crazy balconies in this shaft
so these plates they were like six
meters that’s maybe 18 feet 20 feet into
into the into the room so these are also
kind of growing rocks and and all Fano
means due to the phyto cost and then we
we witnessed a thunderstorm going over
us and it rumbled and it echoed and
suddenly you hear splashing and rumbling
and water
like water filling pipes and everything
sounded like in another dimension and
suddenly this fighter cost things they
spit water like yeah and waterfalls came
out and I reacted fast to arrange for
shots and who knows how long it takes
but that was pretty amazing to find
suddenly these waterfalls normally it
should frighten you because I mean to
have a water break in like this it’s
almost or in a cave or always quite
dangerous but this cave is so big that
you don’t need to be afraid that the
water can kind of close you in or that
you might drown or whatever so was not
the issue but it was overwhelming I mean
you could imagine the noise I mean it
was splashing it was roaring and it was
yeah very loud difficult to communicate
difficult to tell what what to do and
how to light and whatever so it was a
jump running jumping and fast reactions
so and now you see how I deal with the
light and I give you some different
ideas how this giant phyto cast how I
looked like in different lighted
situations so we have some underwater
lights and above water light and and
effectively it was a quite misty day as
usual and quite tricky to get something
and just that you get the relation on
top of this huge Tower of phyto cost
there standing a person it’s just
enormous as always always incredible to
realize these dimensions you know and
then we are walking through that gallery
and we coming into this dim range of the
next of the next door line which is
called Garden of Eden
and also there we can see this low-light
formations with this vitacost formations
where some mosses and whatever grow
against the light
yeah very beautiful and the further you
get into that dole line the crazy of
these shapes get and here we see again
some microorganisms forming and growing
towards the light
here we see this whitish areas that is
where the microorganisms grow against
the light and that’s the natural light
and then I I front lit the same
situation and you see now where the
chlorophyll is and where the receptive
areas are for for photosynthesis here
the same in a detail it looks like the
surface of Mars
it looks so extraterrestrial that this
is done with natural light by the way
and if I add front light it looks like
that yeah it’s a really really crazy
formation so I I love to explore this
type of things you know area why I have
never heard anything about it or seen
anything about it and you stumble about
this the beginning I couldn’t believe it
I mean it was rock hard stem and there
was this little fan on top and it looks
like it’s growing on pavement it’s rock
everything is rock the stem is rock and
there is little green I mean it looks
like fossils like you really like the
Jurassic on but it’s green on top and
it’s not petrified it’s living and
obviously living very well there
yeah that’s that’s a relative to the
nettle to it’s a boutique ax which is
kind of strange because it doesn’t look
at all similar and then you have this
communities so of in the phyto cars so
all these different colors are light
green dark green
redish that is all related to a
different micro organism and it would be
really nice to do a biological research
to determine what kind of organisms are
able to capable to do that and maybe it
would be interesting for science because
maybe they are very light receptive and
who knows what you can I don’t know
couldn’t can use that so it would be
really nice to to do some more
exploration there and this is how Garden
of edom looks like so we have a forest
inside the cave which is incredible and
we have this you try to cost yeah
stalagmites in front and then a jungle
it is kind of strange that we had a
botanist with us and he looked for maybe
new plants he couldn’t find any but
every every plan is kind of informed in
a different way so that’s that’s him
researching the plants and especially
the trees they grow slim they don’t have
much light like above and they are tall
maybe 100 feet tall but very slim and
and tender and it’s it’s a really well
interesting environment which is kind of
different so they call it morphological
plasticity or phenotypic plasticity that
these plants shape different so it’s not
genetically and this is a little
impactions with a little fruit fly on it
so even you find even flowers there it
was really overwhelming experience to
see that and to live in that time and
and also the way back there I mean when
it when it was night I mean we hear this
kind of strange noises it was a big flat
and it was echoing everywhere it was
really loud for her we couldn’t imagine
what it is I mean we would have thought
it’s maybe a pterodactyl is like a
flying sorrows or something like that
but then we we thought maybe it’s a big
old but we never saw it we always
listened to it and it sounded so loud
and so well you could imagine anything
to that so it was a very very very weird
environment and you yeah you are
yeah to me it was really yeah incredible
to witness that
the situation there in this shaft was
extraordinary sunlight was hitting the
ground it was humid and whole clouds
were rising and it was like climbing
through the skies climbing through the
heaven and you are in midst of these
cloud formations that was really
something very very special and amazing
to me I mean you’re like in midst well
in midst the heaven captured in a cave
so this was really unusual to just enjoy
and this is how you feel after a trip
like this
I mean you are worn out and everyone is
kind of done and and and these are the
real stars of our expedition the porters
they were amazing and without them it
would have been impossible and there is
a big thanks to them big thanks to
National Geographic vixx thanks to the
British cave Research Association and
all the team thank you very much to you
as well
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